CEO says Nokia brand could disappear within 10 years, reminding everyone Nokia existed at all

Microsoft is putting the finishing touches to the $7 billion purchase of Nokia's phone and tablet wing. This leaves Nokia to go on separately doing whatever else it does.

Stephen Elop, CEO of Nokia, when asked about the future, reckoned that Nokia as a thing could vanish in the next ten years. That means that the new Lumia devices could well be the last ever Nokia devices.

Elop said: "What we have to decide is what the brand will be. Because we have not decided what brand will be dominant for smartphones, that's work that's still ahead. And of course the way we'll go through that process is to assess with consumers what they respond most positively to, what conveys the best message and the best hopes of success."

"Microsoft as a company, of course, has many brands: Xbox, Office, Surface and a variety of others. We have brands like Lumia. So we'll need to decide what the next step is from a branding perspective. There are hundreds and hundreds of millions of people who are familiar with and use Microsoft and Nokia technology, literally billions of people between the two companies. And I suspect that somewhere in there amongst all of those purchasing decisions there's something that we can tap into."

So there you have it, the potential erasing of one of the most iconic names in the mobile phone universe (primarily for their indestructible 3310s and for introducing the world to Snake). Does it make you sentimental? Don't give a hoot?

As ever, you're invited to leave pithy comments below.

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5 comments

Hmm, I don't know. The low-end Lumia range such as the Lumia 520 are very popular, and at under £100 they represent exceptional value and superior performance when compared to comparably-priced Android smartphones. Let's see.

@ Nathan
I'd hardly call a Lumia 520 superior to any of the budget android phones. For £60 you can buy a Y300 that will do nearly everything the latest phones can, on a platform that's actually useful.

@Peter
I was talking about performance, not functionality. The Lumia 520 will, and has been, shitting all over comparably-priced Android smartphones in the same price range due to the fluidity of Windows Phone 8; it's far more optimised for low-end hardware than Android is.
£150+ is the price point where I believe Android devices become reasonably useable and have minimal lag.